Also importantly, they discovered the pre-fusion state envelope protein to be dimeric, while the post-fusion state envelope protein was trimeric. Based on these findings, Dr. Chao and Harrison conducted where they discovered yield of fused membranes increased if they increased the size of the contact patch, and yield decreased as the pH of buffer increased. They also were able to show that the trimerization of envelope proteins is a kinetic bottleneck, limited by the availability of monomers required for fusion. This is important because of its possible application in drug development. The kinetic bottleneck that Chao and Harrison propose means that full saturation would be needed in order to block entry, as opposed to drugs targeting SNAP/SNARE vesicle fusion, which fires and fuses rapidly in the presence of calcium.
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